64-bit progress (and near-success)

[adam613]

I built a 64-bit native gcc, and it can compile both itself and glibc properly. Turns out the trick to getting 64-bit and 32-bit glibcs to coexist is to build everything with --prefix=/usr. That will cause glibc's build to make /lib64 and /usr/lib64. You also need to edit the gcc specs file to specify the correct defaults, and set CC before you run glibc's configure script.

I'll post a build script when I finish refining it and figure out exactly what I did that worked.

There are three remaining problems, which are really one problem (before anyone asks, no, I do not practice Christianity):

1) my compiler won't work unless you pass it -m32 or -m64 on the command line.
2) there are some fairly serious mistakes in the stager script and the portage ebuild.
3) since the portage ebuild and Makefile both ignore CFLAGS, I can't build a stage1.

In other words, things don't "just work" on sparc like they do on x86. I'm attempting to take these problems up with the appropriate authorities, but if someone here is one of those authorities, I've got some patches for you.

[bazik]

Just one simple questions: Will it be possible to create a 64bit LiveCD and a 64bit Stage1 tarball wich can be used like for the "normal" install and create a full 64bit system? If yes, that would be really cool for most users

Is there a great speed difference between full 64bit Linux on Sparc and the current 64bit kernel / 32bit userland combo?

Good luck for your project!
_________________
Gentoo Linux/Sparc Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~bazik/

[adam613]

[xming]

64-bit is generally slower than 32-bit except in 2 case

- When you need more than 4GB of virtual memory or your process needs more than 4 GB (impossible with 32-bit)

- When you are working with numbers bigger then 2^32

For the rest 64-bit binaries are bigger (slower to load) and if I'm not mistaken use more memory (slower to run)

xming

[bazik]